The Church of Satan Is Not Pleased With This Week’s ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ Episode

If you fell off the American Horror Storytrain a while back, then now is the time to hop back on: Apocalypse is a surprisingly enjoyable mega-crossover that sees the return of the Coven cast (with Stevie Nicks in tow!). Last night’s episode took a super-sized and super-delightful detour to the OG Murder House location — a hot bed of spooky activity — where fans were treated to the return of several familiar faces, along with a few new ones. While most fans were thrilled, a certain group took issue with one of the episode’s numerous guest stars — specifically, a fictionalized version of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.

In “Return to Murder House,” a newly-revived Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts) joins warlock Behold Chablis (the amazing Billy Porter from Pose) for a little road trip to the Murder House to see what they can find out about this season’s big bad, Michael Langdon (Cody Fern) — aka the antichrist. After spending time with some AHS faves (Dylan McDermott and Jessica F—king Lange in a truly triumphant return), Connie Britton’s Vivien Harmon finally shows herself, offering some much-needed exposition regarding the antichrist and the threat he presents to all of humanity.

As it turns out, Michael didn’t fully come into his power until he was paid a visit by Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey and two of his cardinals — played by Kathy Bates and Naomi Grossman. The trio perform a gruesome sacrificial ritual in which LaVey stabs a young woman, reaches into her body, and pulls out her beating heart, which is then presented to Michael as a tasty midnight snack. Basically, imagine if it was Viserys Targaryen who ate that horse heart on Game of Thrones instead of Dany.

Like most real-life characters and events borrowed for the series, AHS obviously took some creative liberties with the Church of Satan for entertainment purposes. Still, the actual Church of Satan was not having it. When Kathy Bates tweeted out a cute comment about the episode, the Church’s official Twitter account responded:

They (or whoever is running their Twitter account) are awfully offended for a group that doesn’t take religion seriously. I mean, I might expect this sort of response from an evangelical group if, say, AHS incorporated a satirical version of Billy Graham or Joel Osteen. I don’t even think Donald Trump responded to the way he was portrayed/discussed in last year’s Cult installment — and that guy usually can’t help himself.